This article is part of our Design special report previewing Milan Design Week.
“When Apricots Blossom” is the title of a 1937 poem by the Stalinist-era Uzbek writer Hamid Olimjon, about a white flowering tree whose aroma is stolen by the breeze every spring. The speaker is philosophical about this loss:
I say “so be it” and will not get angry;
I wrap my thoughts around the flowers;
whenever I walk out into the spring,
I ask whether I have any good fortune.
Inspired by Olimjon’s description of beauty and fortitude in the face of recurring devastation, the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation made the flowering apricot the symbol of its exhibition of Uzbek design during Milan Design Week.
Presented at Palazzo Citterio, a museum in Milan’s Brera district, “When Apricots Blossom” showcases the centuries-old craft traditions of Karakalpakstan in northwest Uzbekistan, which has suffered from drought since the diversion in the 1960s of the two main rivers that fed the Aral Sea. Since then, 90 percent of the Aral Sea, which is technically a large saltwater lake, has vanished.
“What is particularly moving is that the apricot tree has demonstrated remarkable resilience in the region even after the disappearance of the Aral Sea,” said Gayane Umerova, the foundation’s chairwoman. “We wanted to present the region thematically, culturally and with a sense of optimism — through a narrative arc of resilience.”
“When Apricots Blossom” begins with vertical streams of color on the facade of the 18th-century museum building, continues into the courtyard, drops roots into two underground spaces and ends in the garden.
The show was curated and designed by Kulapat Yantrasast, a founding partner of the Los Angeles architectural studio WHY. Mr. Yantrasast, who was born in Thailand, was chosen for his ability to bridge Eastern and Western architectural perspectives.
“The exhibition is an invitation to engage,” he said, referring to Uzbek culture, which is unfamiliar to many outside Central Asia. “We want people to be curious about the country and want to see more.”
One such cultural bridge was established at the very start by the British designer Bethan Laura Wood, who draped ribbons and tassels on the museum’s exterior to evoke the fabric traditionally crisscrossing the roofs of Uzbek yurts.
Though Ms. Wood often works in a palette of strong reds and pinks, she shifted here to golden yellows and browns. “I saw and liked the apricot hues, which tie back to Olimjon’s poem,” she said.
Apricot trees arranged by Ruben Saakyan, an Uzbek floral designer, surround the courtyard’s welcome desk as symbols of hospitality. This installation adds a splash of vivifying color before visitors descend, Dante-like, to an underground area that Mr. Yantrasast described as much like a bunker or a disco.
In these depths, works by Ms. Wood and Mr. Yantrasast, along with a dozen other international contemporary designers in partnership with Uzbek artisans, are on view. Each piece is associated with bread, a vital foodstuff in a region of scarcity.
Marcin Rusak of Warsaw, for example, created a bread tray that is a perforated glass block filled with salt water representing the Aral Sea. Bobir Klichev, a designer based in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, produced a tray in ceramic that rests on columns and is glazed in colors representing Karakalpakstan’s flat landscape. Didi NG Wing Yin, a wood artist in Helsinki, Finland, used reeds standing on end as a bread-tray support.
A number of participants took inspiration from Uzbek bread stamps — tools that mark loaves with the symbols of their makers. Studio CoPain in Brussels designed a stamp motif of apricots and flowers, and Sevara Haydarova Donazzan, an Uzbek designer based in Italy, created a yurt-shaped tool that produces concentric floral patterns. The London studio Raw-Edges combined the tray and bread stamp themes in a round wood base studded with nails that etch the loaf that it bears with blossoms.
Projected in the same space, a 24-minute documentary, “Where the Water Ends,” chronicles the impact of the Aral Sea’s disappearance on the region.
As visitors pass from the underground gallery to the garden, the transition is marked by a tree sculpture by Mr. Saakyan working with Roman Shtengauer, a Russian floral designer. The sculpture is made of apricot branches gathered from Uzbek gardens where fruit-bearing trees were pruned to improve their yield.
“The tree does not look naturalistic, but is stylized, embodying the full diversity of nature through a quite spare means of expression,” Mr. Saakyan said.
A centerpiece of the palazzo’s garden is a yurt. These structures traditionally have bent wood circular frames and short, conical felt roofs; the walls are covered in reed mats and woven textiles. However, this yurt, which hosts an exhibition program of talks and workshops, is made with translucent fabric. “I wanted it to be sexier, like the mainsail of a boat that is durable to protect from rain, but glows and allows people to see inside the structure,” Mr. Yantrasast said.
“When Apricots Blossom” is on view through April 26 at Palazzo Citterio, 14 Via Brera, Milan; acdf.uz.
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